"Don't get me wrong, I like Jim Murphy's aggressive, lead-from-the-front approach. And he can win marathons for political endurance."

Yeah, right.

"Yet he will be the first to know that his association with the leadership of the Better Together campaign is disastrous positioning."

Ah, so that will be the Better Together campaign that won the votes of the majority of the Scottish electorate. Yes, what a disaster for him.Also, judging by past performance, expect more of these kind of pieces over the next couple of weeks, as we lead up to the Scottish leadership election finale in December; it would not be going out too much on a limb to predict a further piece from Owen Jones, say. Or the Guardian's Seumas Milne. Familiar, friendly faces to the Unite boss.Happily, I suspect that Scottish Labour members may just have become a little fed up of being told what to think by Unite.Especially after what happened in Falkirk.STOP PRESS: I just found this further hatchet job at the Huffington Post by a chap called John Wight. However, I'm not sure if it really counts for my collection, as (a) he is not either a "proper" journalist or a key party figure, and (b) the bonkers Wight is also a fan of genocidal dictator Bashar Assad, as my good friends at Harry's Place helpfully point out.STOP PRESS (II): I underestimated Owen Jones (see above), who actually got there first. In this wonderfully apocalyptic piece entitled "The grim reaper is knocking for Scottish Labour", Jones explains the evil Blairites' cunning plan to spoil everything:

So who is being lined up as Lamont’s successor? The arch-Blairite, staunchly pro-war Westminster machine politician, Jim Murphy.

To be fair, though, this is not a proper hatchet job, as the whole piece is not dedicated to Murphy. It's more of, say, a drive-by shooting.

STOP PRESS (III): on a related topic, thanks to Paul Hutcheon for pointing out to me his piece in today's Scottish Sunday Herald, on how the unions are using the ballot packs they send out to members to "help" them to vote in their preferred way (despite the fact that the ballot is One Member, One Vote and therefore members choose, not union leaders).

The GMB have repeated the stunt they pulled in the UK leadership election of 2010 in including only campaign literature from their preferred candidate (and not the other two). The most shameless was, predictably, Unite, who included a "mock" ballot paper along with the real one, with a cross in Neil Findlay's name. As a "senior party source" said, it's "desperate stuff".

Presumably as Unite “peacefully” demonstrated at the homes of Grangemouth oil refinery managers, during last summer’s botched industrial dispute. It is a technique latterly championed by the union, known as “leveraging” (in fact, so excited is it by its novel idea that the union now has created a merged Organising and Leverage Department, to help promote it further).

The reality: when someone’s child dare not go outside to play, or has to ask its parents who the angry crowd of people shouting outside their garden gate are, or it is an unacceptable crossing of the line between legitimate and non-legitimate targets.

It is, needless to say, intimidation, by any other name. It is bullying.

Sunday, 9 November 2014

Two thoughts for this day, on which Europe commemorates the sacrifices of millions during the first half of the last century, to defend the continent from the oppression of dictators.As luck would have it, today is also a quarter of a century since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Last night Germany celebrated the most important moment in its postwar history, what Angela Merkel called the "miracle" which signalled the end of Communism and Russian's hitherto-unquestioned domination of Eastern Europe.Meanwhile, the Russian tanks rumble into Ukraine's Luhansk province, unhindered by any meaningful sanction by a Europe and America hobbled by their own isolationism; tanks put there by a leader who now claims the partition of Poland between the Soviets and the Nazis was justified.How short our memories.

“Unite’s representative members will soon decide who to nominate on behalf of our union. On the basis of this speech, it is extremely difficult for them to find much to find hope that Jim Murphy is offering the genuine, positive change in Scottish Labour they seek.”

Notice first how Unite members are being given a completely free choice of candidate, and that its leadership is not trying to influence them at all (there's a little irony in there if you look for it). In fact, this effect of denying a level playing-field to leadership candidates in the union vote – that is, trying to distort the One Member, One Vote (OMOV) process – was one of the main reasons for the Collins reforms.

By Monday they had announced the results of a poll claiming that “working people” (i.e. Unite members: the union sees no irony in considering the two identical) wanted an MSP in the role and not an MP. Oh, wait a minute, which of the declared candidates is not an MSP…?

UPDATE 06NOV: It is also worth - for the humour value - reading Rahman's own response in the linked Telegraph piece, on quite possibly one of the biggest abuses of power and public funds in my lifetime:

“The report highlights flaws in processes. These are regrettable. We will learn from this report and strengthen our procedures accordingly,” he said.

"Flaws in our processes", indeed.

I suppose that Derek Hatton must have said something similar in the dying days of Liverpool City Council.

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About the blogger

Activist, free thinker, Labour Party management team through 2001 and 2005 general elections, responsible for Labour's early web presence and creator of its first-ever national electoral register. Dad to two lovely little girls. Now work as project/programme/interim manager for an evil multinational, with a sideline in political commentary.

Politically think of myself as a loyalist (rather than a parrot). Member of Progress and the Co-op. My posts are vetted only by my, er, own sense of discretion and propriety. I've worked in business for many years, so have no truck with anti-business prejudice. Like social/ethical business, co-operatives and sustainability. Fought one general election and longlisted by NEC panel to be Labour candidate in 2010.